Our laundry hall parties
In the cold of winter, and also in the other seasons during bad weather, we all preferred to meet in the laundry hall in Brunswiker Strasse, about 30 metres to the right of the pizzeria. The parties we had here were sometimes really bad. Barne also liked to stay in the laundry hall. He was seldom around at that time without his kasi recorder. We listened to Finnish punk here, to the third OHL LP and Barne's favourite band Mayhem. In the laundry hall, Barne kept emphasizing that he was an '81 punk and I was just an '82 punk. He needled all the '82 punks with it. Of course it hit me hard, because he was not only one year younger than me, but also one year longer as a punk. This provoked me as much as his reproaches in my early days when he accused me of being nothing more than a pseudo, because I neither had a painted leather jacket nor a punk hairstyle. I was still in the start-up phase.
As usual, we had expert discussions about punk music in the laundry hall. Since I was busy ordering from Vinyl Boogie in the meanwhile, I was able to participate with excellence. Barne was best informed about the latest punk. He told me about a Brazilian band called Olho Seco. Barne's philosophy consisted of punk music, self-destruction, vandalism and loads of fun. He had one laugh after the other. We could not foresee that Barne would become one of the tragic protagonists of the Kiel punk scene. Provocatively and visually, he still stepped up a gear. He liked to steal the KWS (Kieler Wach- und Schliessgesellschaft, Kiel-based security company) check slips from the entrance doors of the shops that were controlled. I was surprised several times that he took off when a KWS vehicle approached. Probably all of them already knew him.
Steff, who also wore round nickel glasses, had just bought the Live Kicks by UK Subs. Barne was convinced that the 'i' in "Live" was pronounced short as in the German word "Schiff"[1]. I countered that in this case it would have to be written with 'f'', therefore "Life", and that would make no sense at all. Since it was a live record, it could only be pronounced as "steif" or "reif"[2]. We sat in the laundry hall and discussed the correct pronunciation of Live Kicks for hours going over it again and again. This was all bullshit and became as crazy as Gonnrad and Mig's discussion in Gaarden about "A Forest" by The Cure, but Barne was probably just messing around with us. You never knew. Anyhow, he was deadly serious in order to roar in resounding laughter a little later. He was a real rascal.
Of course, we discussed the Bluttat[3] LP from A to Z. Even when Hüsker Dü released their live LP Landspeed Records, we sat together for hours in the laundry hall and discussed it. Barne called the first Hüsker Dü LP an über-record. Our behaviour soon became too messy for many visitors of the laundry hall, and in future we went elsewhere to wash.
To the delight of us all, there was a petrol station nearby, where we regularly organized drinks. When we needed fresh money, we would sometimes scrounge in front of the stairs at the disco "Flohmarkt"[4] between 8 and 9pm, because this was the best place for our business. We received in the first line cigarettes and smaller coins, and it was mostly women who donated something. The fact that Barne started peeing in the washing machines at some point was disgusting, but the public toilets under the Dreiecksplatz were really not acceptable for anyone, not even for a punk. On another evening, however, Barne peed through the slot on the glass door of a fur shop right next to the laundry hall. When the alarm was triggered, we made a runner as quickly as possible. The cops repeatedly became aware of us. The drinking was simply too much and there was a flood of complaints. One day all the punks finally got a collective house ban, that we respected with a few exceptions. We had to find a new place to stay.
The drug party in the Dog Owner's Club
I often took the bus back north from the city together with Barne. He had to get off in Kiel-Wik at the bus stop Knorrstrasse, whereas I had to leave the inner districts of Kiel via the Kanal High Bridge to Pries-Friedrichsort to the Brahmsweg stop, or, if the bus drove "the other way", to Grüffkamp. I was told about an upcoming party at the Dog Owner's Club Friedrichsort near Falckenstein Beach. When the day of the party had come, I tried to convince Barne during the whole bus ride to join me for the party. He refused and wanted to go home. It was better that way. Later I realized why: I went alone to the party at the Dog Owner's Club. When I arrived there, it was absolutely silent. The party didn't take place that weekend. Barne had made the right decision. The party I promised him would not take place until a few weekends later. I was misinformed about that.
Wisent, a schoolmate and mate, whose brother Ottmar was a drug addict and party co-organizer, finally told me. Wisent, who wore nickel glasses, was never a punk himself, but he liked to listen to punk music, especially when we visited him with a few people in Pries Village. He borrowed the punk tapes from his big brother, who was more of a hippie.
Arne-Hauke, who was the first ever punk at Hebbelschool, a "Grammar School for Boys and Girls" near the Wik naval military base, and Jonathan, another hippie, were also among the co-organizers. When the party finally took place, a lot of hippie music was played, almost like in the "Hinterhof", but also a little Stranglers, Police and The Clash. I stood outside most of the time and talked to the two sisters Karina and Clio, who were also attending the mentioned school at the time. I fell in love with Karina that night while Clio stood next to her and gave flirting tips. At the beginning we had a completely civilized and decent conversation, although I was a punk and addressed this fact. All of a sudden I was drunk. Inside, most party guests sat on mattresses against the walls and on sofas. Nobody danced. I finally tried to hit on Karina a bit harder, but she laughed at me, just like her sister. I tried to impress her somehow in my boozy head, and told her about punk and booze stories. Inside, a wide variety of drugs were probably consumed. They played for the umpteenth time "Message in a Bottle". I smashed a beer bottle, took a broken fragment and said to Karina,
"Look, I'm gonna kill myself for you!"
I started cutting my left wrist with a piece of broken glass, but the two sisters didn't take it very seriously, they ignored me or continued to laugh at me. I expected at least some sympathy or encouragement. Apparently they were not mad about pseudos. I scratched myself lightly into the skin and expected the first blood. Suddenly I refrained from my plan annoyed, and went back into the Dog Owner's Club to get the next beer. Later I would meet the two sisters now and then in the Bergstrasse, where we had a nice talk despite everything, until I saw Karina suddenly with the Pfefferminz bouncer. He was almost ten years older than her. That was a real pain in the ass.
A punk concert during Kiel Week
During Kiel Week ("Kieler Woche", large annual sailing event), the band Frannie and the Fireballs played regularly – just like every year. Punk concerts were rare in our city, however, we had to take what came. This time a real punk band would actually perform during Kiel Week, of course outside of the program given by the city administration. The West Berliner Beton Combo (an important German polit-punk band in the early 80s), that we all mistakenly thought was a punk band from Hanover, was to play in a large private flat near the city centre in Harmsstrasse. The flat had previously been cleared out and equipped with a small stage[5]. It didn't fit in too many punks, so the neighbours didn't kick up a fuss. Punks from all parts of the city now appeared for the spontaneously organized concert, because news of the gig spread like wildfire. They took two Deutschmarks as entrance fee from the poorer punks. The concert was loud, short and chaotic. We punks were completely in our element.
Near this misused flat we discovered a fish shop on wheels, a commercial fish seller, like the kind you could meet at the coast at every big festival and every weekly market. Suddenly a young punk named Strahl jumped into action. He had bright red hair – skål and bon appetit if it actually was his natural colour. With his one metre sixty frame he struck the shop first and stole a big red salmon. The salmon was literally torn to pieces and devoured by a mob of punks. Time and time again individual punks went with intention to steal a fish roll or something similar from this fishmonger. It was real petty theft that turned into binge eating. The saleswoman was on her own and was obviously afraid. She didn't dare to do anything against the wild punks. It seemed we were happiest just making a mess. A while later we turned and ran.
My new zip jacket
I read an article about the new punk scene in the magazine "Stern", that my parents subscribed to. One punk in the article said he had promised his mother that he wanted to be a reasonable punk. He was shown in one of the photos – sitting in a chair with a strand of hair falling in his face. His mother stood dominantly beside him and cut his hair. This report was supposed to change my entire punk life decisively. After absorbing the article, I decided to become a reasonable punk as well, even though it caused me considerable difficulties, not least when there were larger amounts of alcohol involved.
Every time my mother, a trained hairdresser, cut my hair, I remembered the punk from the Stern article. Most of the time I had arguments with my mother while she cut my hair. We quarreled with each other because I asked her for a punk hairstyle that she wouldn't tolerate. I tried to say to her when she was cutting my hair,
"Here a bit less!"
and
"There a little bit longer!"
and
"Don't cut it off. You leave that on!"
until we finally agreed to a compromise. To avoid this almost unbearable stress, I started to cut my own hair more and more frequently in front of the pseudo 'Alibert' mirror-cabinet. In addition, I often used my electric shaver to cut the hair above my ears. The shaver hadn't been in my possession for long. What use would it have been for my bum fluff? At that time also, I was not in possession of any hair clippers, with which I would surely have created even more mischief – to me and to others. For years my mother was flabbergasted when she saw my self-styled haircuts, and as a hairdresser she repeatedly tried to save what could be saved on my head. It was an indescribable drama.
What I really resented was the fact that she took the flat iron and simply ironed over my expensive T-shirts with band names and band logos. My blood was boiling. For her this was a normal course of action. She even disposed of a Stray Cats muscle shirt, without batting an eyelid. It was a gift from Zilvana. Likewise, my mother threw away old, torn jeans mercilessly. As a result of this I had to keep an eye on my clothes and I didn't give some of my clothes to be taken to the laundry anymore.
In the Stern article I saw in one of the photos for the very first time a pair of zip trousers. From that moment on I collected all the zippers I could get my hands on. In our cellar there were several old clothes bags full of worn-out clothes, among them several pairs of trousers with zippers. I took a razor blade and carefully removed the zippers. These extracted objects were collected in a blue Adidas shoe box. Soon I counted more than 20 zippers. I found an old work jacket from my father, that was blue, but fitted me quite well. My idea was to sew the zippers on the jacket, a few on the sleeves, a few on the back, a few on the front and finally some on the shoulders, and last but not least to dye my selfmade zip jacket black. I fastened the first zipper with pins and sewed it with needle and thread. More zippers followed.
When sewing by hand this seemed too laborious, I sat down at my mother's sewing machine, and the needles broke several times. Soon I finished the sewing work, bought black fabric dye, put the still blue zip jacket in the washing machine, tipped the dye into the drum, added a light T-shirt and started the machine. When I looked at the result, I was just proud. I hung the jacket up to dry, even ironed it later carefully and put it away for the time being in the wardrobe in my room.
News had already got around at school that the next punk meeting was to take place on Saturday at the Penny playground in Wik. I definitely wanted to show off my new zip jacket on this occasion. When I got there, the other punks were already totally drunk, so nobody really took notice of my new jacket. We just bought Hansa-Pils and Lambrusco at the Penny market and took the bus to Schilksee Beach. I got drunk pretty quick. In Schilksee we sat with about twelve punks between the beach chairs and kept on boozing. We possibly broke open a beach chair and drank Küstennebel[6] on it. I was so proud of my zip jacket all the time, wearing my homemade stud wristband, the homemade double-row stud belt and my Domestos-bleached Chaos U.K. T-shirt. It was extremely hot, and at some point I took off my zip jacket and put it on one of the beach chairs. We continued drinking happily until late afternoon. We set off at last. In the meantime I'd blacked out. All I can remember was that we went to the bus, and went back to the city. We were on our way to the squat at Sophienblatt. Suddenly it shot through my head,
"Where's my zip jacket?"
All of a sudden I was sober. I remembered putting it on a beach chair. Without hestitation I took the next bus back to Schilksee. We'd gotten rid of our garbage and I could find no trace of where our little beach party was. Or I failed to detect the exact location of our drinking session. I searched the whole area, all the beach chairs, but couldn't find my zip jacket. Also from above the beach promenade I tried to overlook this fucking section of the beach. I was shocked. My beloved zip jacket, in which I had invested so much work and time, was lost on the very first day I went on tour with it. Sadly I went back to the city, hoping to meet the other punks somewhere. I expected to find some people in the Café Underground in the squatters house. A group of squatters were lurking outside the house. I asked,
"Have you seen the punks?"
One of them was about to attack me,
"You fucking punk, I'll get you!"
I screamed,
"Leave me alone, you fucking squatters!"
and jumped over the balustrade at Sophienblatt so that the five older hippies couldn't catch me. For some reason the squatters had developed hatred against the punks again, and they wanted to let off steam on me. I was confused. What made the squatters angry at the punks? Why did they now want to attack me? I just had to slip away. After this incident I hung around the city centre for a while, but didn't meet up with any of the punks. My new zip jacket was lost. Frustrated and infinitely sad I went back home.
California über alles
The Kiel punks started taking action, and I tried to participate as much as possible. On a weekend in the middle of summer, an NPD[7] meeting was to take place northeast of Kiel at the seaside resort of Kalifornien behind Laboe. All the punks, including the Wik Punks and the punk named Kammkatz, gathered to go to Kalifornien to try to disrupt the event. We started the bus ride with more than fifteen punks and we got in the mood early with a lot of booze.
Zilvana from Schilksee participated as well. She was the girlfriend of Krake, the drug user with whom she regularly exchanged love letters from prison through the post. I even visited Zilvana once in Schilksee. We talked most of the afternoon. She suddenly wanted to read out Krake's love letters from prison.
When she put on her tight black jeans during my visit, she could not close the zipper and asked me to help her,
"I can't close the fucking zipper. Can you help me?"
"I'll give it a try!"
"Hold on, I'll push it and you pull it up!"
"Shit, it's stuck!"
I'd never been this close to Zilvana.
"I'll try again.”
"It's better to squeeze the sides even tighter and pull the thing up hard."
"How's that supposed to work? It's still blocked."
"Just try!"
I was so busy with the zipper that I was only subconsciously thinking about starting something sexual with her. Suddenly she left the room. When she came back, the zipper of the tight, black jeans was closed.
"How did you manage that?"
"I pulled my stomach in and suddenly it worked."
I just didn't understand it was a come-on and I missed the chance of a lifetime.
She had told her brother beforehand that she was getting a visit from a punk. As soon as her brother came home he started shouting when he saw me,
"What, and this is supposed to be a punk?"
"Now stop it! He is a punk!"
"This is getting worse and worse with you!"
"You are getting on my nerves here."
That hit me very hard. This made me want to become a frightening punk. When I left later, Zilvana gave me her scratched OHL EP, with the songs "Türkenlied", "Kernkraftritter" and "Leverkusen". Zilvana had been even tattooed with a needle and scriptol by the punk Hotten in her own children's room. Since then she wore an 'H' for Hotten on her upper arm. She was very proud of it, of course.
Anyway, when the horde of punks arrived at the beach in Kalifornien, we didn't see any NPD members despite our expectations. A large part of the mob therefore settled on the beach, drank beer and waited. In the middle of the beach stood a huge garbage container covered with dark blue industrial paint, welded together with thick metal plates. Some of the punks got to work on the container and tried to open it, dismantle or damage it somehow, but in vain. Two punk girls, including Zilvana with her long, black hair, climbed onto the container in their tattered boots and sat down on top. They looked like wasted mermaids at the entrance to the maritime industrial and holiday city Kiel. The atmosphere was great. Suddenly a punk came running through the sand from the nearby campsite.
"There are rockers at the campsite. A whole motorcycle club!"
he cried, gasping for air.
There'd already been a fight between punks and rockers. Everything was chaos. We didn't want to fight with these rockers. We threw a glance in their direction from the dyke, but avoided direct contact with them. Instead, we prowled around the beach until it was dark. We were all pretty sloshed when we were ready to get up and go.
Firstly I went with Ranke, a punk with a purple mohawk, to the boats that anchored near the beach. We waded through the deep water, climbed onto one of the boats and tried desperately to start the engine to sail home over the fjord. We didn't succeed. We'd already lost the other punks earlier during the late evening. Eventually the two of us went back to Laboe Bus Station. Time was running out for the last bus. On the way we saw two unlocked bicycles standing directly on the beach promenade. The owners had probably only run down to the water for a while. We ruthlessly took the bikes and rode them to the bus stop. When we got there we simply threw the bikes away and got on the last bus that would go to the Central Bus Station (ZOB) in Kiel that night.
The bus started immediately after we made ourselves comfortable in the back row. Some stations later, the notorious ticket inspectors got on the bus, who were said to have carried out terrible activities during the Third Reich. It dawned on us that Kiel Public Transport (KVAG) were probably informed about our punk's trip to the east bank and therefore had controls brought out. To make matters worse, these henchmen arrived so suddenly that they must have been on the lookout. It was like a game to them. Ranke had to pay. I had my school ticket. Many of our actions ended up in vain, but at least we did try to do something against the extreme right-wing element.
Photo sessions with the punks
Jenner sold me a small Minox camera for ten Deutschmarks, that he'd stolen on a sailing camp in Schilksee during Kiel Week. This bloke from Friedrichsort was one of the first to dye his hair with a green food colour. The Minox worked flawlessly and was so handy because it fit loosely in an inside coat or a trouser pocket. At last I had my own camera.
I got a black-and-white roll of film and took the Minox to a punk meeting on Saturday at the Penny playground. There I shot the first pictures of us all posing and making obscene punk gestures. I also took some shots at the tram station later. At all costs I wanted to take photos of our outfits and behaviour of the punks, especially on tram line 4, which I found to be a real attraction.
The punks sat in the trailer car criss-crossed on the old wooden benches or on the seat that was once the ticket inspector's and behaved rather chaotically. I took one picture after the other. The Minox made a click every time and the roll of film was obviously working perfectly. When we got off at Dreiecksplatz, the film was already full.
A few days later I wanted to rewind the film to take it out of the camera and get it developed, but the film got stuck and could no longer be moved. So I pulled down the roller blind in my room, turned off the lights and took the camera under the blanket. I wanted to be absolutely sure that no light would disturb the removal of the film during this operation. I carefully opened the Minox under the blanket, fumbled the film out of the camera, removed the remaining section from the packaging box and rolled it up carefully so that it fit into the small black plastic photo container with the grey top. When I had safely locked the container, I turned the light on again. The film seemed saved. All I had to do now was to get it developed.
Unfortunately, I had no idea that I had to open the closure of the black-yellow packaging box to stuff the rolled up film into it. That would have been the safest way. I went with the undeveloped punk film specifically to the drugstore Behn in Friedrichsorter Strasse, because I knew that, unlike the shop Kloppi, I would get a better service there. I spoke to the head of the drugstore Mr Behn personally and described the problem. He instructed me to put the small photo container with the film into a normal photo bag, to write my contact details on the bag and to add a handwritten note, on which I should describe that the problem was that the unpacked film was already loose in the packaging container. I tried hard to formulate the problem sheet and put it in the photo bag with the small container.
When I wanted to pick up the developed photos including negatives a good week later, I was shocked to find out that the photo company Kiel-Color had made a mess of the film. I didn't receive a single developed photo not even the negatives. The photo bag only contained a short, machine-made note: negatives 0, photos 0. I was angry. For a long time I speculated what might have gone wrong. Did any punk haters at Kiel-Color throw the film away deliberately? Or had Mr Behn personally made the film disappear because he disliked me? The mechanism of the camera was still blocked, so that I could take no more photos in the foreseeable future.
It was a disaster for me. I strongly desired to take photos of the Kiel punks. Now I felt the urge to take revenge. That's why I took a stink bomb out of a package in this drugstore and dropped the small bottle in the middle of the shop. It stank like hell. I never entered the shop again after that and was happy when it was later closed, and eventually torn down.
Tank and shipyard industry
In Friedrichsort we often received fresh blood from Berlin. These were children raised in a home who lived opposite the Aral gasoline station or at Grüffkamp. They sometimes died from an overdose of heroin because their responsible compulsory community service was not allowed to take care of them around the clock.
In our district, the malevolent attitude towards cops has traditionally been particularly strong among young people, as the cops in the shipyard and tank construction milieu have always been very harsh. These village cops seemed hopelessly overtaxed when they were confronted and insulted by us young people. They would react when it came to real criminal offences in a physical sense like vandalism or rioting. They didn't miss any tricks. We had to control our hatred for the boys in blue.
Young people were regularly detained randomly because a windowpane was smashed in an allotment garden two kilometres away or a wing mirror was knocked off at the other end of the district. Although it was foreseeable that we had nothing to do with the incident, we were grilled about it at the police station. I don't know if they were experimenting with new police methods on the kids. All of this annoyed us in the long run and strongly damaged the reputation of the police among us. That's why we always had a small, isolated scene that could be regarded as enemies of the state. Hatred of cops was part of the tone, and it was a good thing too. Nevertheless, real punks could not really establish themselves in Friedrichsort. They were hunted by some circles, so it was sometimes risky to appear in punk or subculture gear. To be a punk in Friedrichsort meant danger and taking the bull by the horns. Punks were contemptuously called punkers by hard rockers. Of course, I also had bad blood with most rockers but tried my best to gain their acceptance anyway.
I knew that some people were pinning LSD on each other to test their reactions or to have a bit of fun. Locomotives, large engines and tanks were manufactured on the huge industrial site. Some employees even dealt drugs eagerly during work breaks. Marwelli, who learned the skill of tank construction himself, told me about an incident among the tank builders, which we always regarded as quite shocking. He claimed that someone had glued an LSD pill on a Mars chocolate bar of an apprentice employee in the factory canteen. When the trainee came back from the toilet and wanted to finish his chocolate bar, he ate the pill unsuspectingly. At first he was not told that he had just consumed LSD. Only later, when the workers slowly became afraid that the trainee could go bananas, they revealed the truth to him. It was well known that strange things were going on in the canteen. Tomb the Turk was drug dealing there, who later got my cousin some heroin, which he injected as a lethal overdose in the Fjord Hotel, but that's another story.
At night we often saw unguarded heavy load transports, that transported tanks covered with olive green tarpaulins coming from the tank construction company. Only the cannon tubes peeped out. During the day we watched the tanks and similar vehicles even without tarpaulins, as they were transported by rail through the Heischer Tal. We even threw ballast pebbles at the tanks in our hatred, so that the stones bounced off the steel cases with a metallic "plong".
A punk named Chaos-Meiser also worked on the tank construction site at that time. Nobody really took him that seriously – a bit of a loner really. He was a punk standing his ground in the company. He looked as if he was a person with autism, unsure of how to react to those around him when he was on tour with the punks and was often cut dead. He was probably just too drunk and wanted to take a break from working life.
A football youth trainer told me that at that time only three or four of about 36 trainees per year were taken on as permanent employees. It didn't look much better in shipyard construction, where the Yugoslavs did their best on the night shifts. Many were on the streets for a long time and were easy prey for vigilant dealers and rocker networks.
There have always been different theories about the origin of criminality in the region. Some claimed that all crimes are related to the major crimes within the big companies. Strangely enough, Chaos-Meiser was not affected by the rigorous internal training policy of the tank and engine construction company. It must have saved him.
In Waldemar-Bonsels-Strasse, near the town centre, was the alternative residential project "Alte Sattlerei". Here lived a small hippie community that grew several cannabis plants in flower pots. One plant had green leaves that were finely and reddishly serrated. We had trouble several times with the hippies, mostly light swearing on the street and in the "Turkish snack bar" Erdal. Nevertheless, we participated in small parties in the hippie building several times without really getting into conversations with these people. All of a sudden, the city urged the hippies to leave the area so that the building could be demolished. We were surprised. Instead, a large parking lot with a provocatively bumpy cobblestone pavement was built, where we couldn't even ride our bikes painlessly. While the Alte Sattlerei was torn down, the road sign continued to hang there. Something ultimately went wrong.
Many things were swept under the carpet in Friedrichsort. I was told that a scientific investigation had revealed that the moat of the old fortress was heavily contaminated with toxic heavy metal waste from the foundry. Furthermore, it was reported that the corresponding measures by a zoologist from Kiel University who lived in Altenholz, had to disappear into drawers by order of officials. So much for science. This story was told to me by the partner of the daughter of the professor of zoology. Nothing had been reported about it in the media. Only the junkies raked up the old story again and again.
The permanent hammering and welding at the nearby shipyard, produced great physical effects with which we could identify as the reason why many of the young drug addicts were keen on the sound of Einstürzende Neubauten or monotonous synthesizer beating. When it was dark the weld flashes looked like aggressive northern lights dancing over the shipyard grounds. With a pounding head in the morning or when you had to sleep or to play football, the shipyard hammering could get on your nerves. It tended to increase headaches – even if you lived over a kilometre away.
Furthermore, it could not be explained why a bathing ban applied on the small beach and whether the legend was true that the mussel beds in front of the shipyard had indeed died from decades of flooding of the docks with the sandblasted antifouling paint.
But we had other problems in Friedrichsort. The evil spirits of the past were omnipresent. This gammy Waffen-SS man, who was stationed in Lithuania and had lost his right arm, was constantly walking through the town centre. When shopping, he always stuck the BILD newspaper under the stump, which shocked us kids strongly.
My father once said something both trivial and glorifying,
"He lost his arm in the war as a young lieutenant."
I soon feared that there might be something worse behind the story of the wounded old man from the neighbourhood. That's why at some point I strongly forbade my parents from talking to him in the future, although for a while I played with his grandson on the same football team. After I had issued this gagging order to my parents there was a very bad argument in the family.
The father of another teammate – a resident of the Fjord Football Pitch and working in tank construction – said to me on the spectator ranks during a district class game,
"If you dig up the Fjord Football Pitch, you're sure to find some more bog people."
A macabre insinuation, because right next to his apartment block on Fontanestrasse near the Fjord Football Pitch was the "Schurskamp, Deutsche Werke" which was active until the end of the war. That was too much for my poor Friedrichsort soul. I couldn't believe all that "bullshit". Such statements stirred us up and created aggression.
[1] Schiff (engl. ship) pronounced [ʃɪf] with a short i
[2] steif (engl. stiff) pronounced [ʃtaɪf], reif (engl. ripe) pronounced [raɪf]
[3] The German punk band Bluttat from Mülheim an der Ruhr was founded in 1981.
[4] Dance-pop disco at Bergstrasse Kiel during the 80s.
[5] Many years later we learned that it wasn't Beton Combo who was playing there but the Hamburger punk band Razzia.
[6] "coastal fog" as a rough translation of "Küstennebel", that is a milky liqueur from North Germany
[7] right-wing extremist party in Germany (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands)
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